Conveyer system



Oct. 8, 1929. H, DRAEGER l 1,731,095

CONVEYER SYSTEM Filed May 27, 1927 5 sheets-sheet 1 gnwntoz lllragfef:

ct. 8, 1929. 1 H, DRAEGER 1,731,095

CONVEYER SYSTEM Filed May 27, 192'? 5'SheebS-Sheet ,2

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L. H. DRAEGER CONVEYER SYSTEM Filed May 27. 1927 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 Oct. 8, 1929.

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L. H. DRAEGER CONVEYER SYSTEI Oct. 8, 1929.

Filed May 27, 1927 5 Shoels--Sheetl 5 ailier n u1 Patented ct. 8, 1929 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE LLOYD II. DEAEGER, oE MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, AssIeNoR To CHAIN BELT CoM- PAN Y, OF MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, A CORPORATION OF WISCONSIN coNvEYEE SYSTEM Application led May 27, 1927. Serial No. 194,750.

This invention relates to conveyer systems and has for one of its objects to provide an improved system of this character which is adapted to receive articles at a'loading station and to transfer them to one or more receiving stations where they are automatically deposited.-

A further object of the invention is to pro-l vide a conveyer of the trip hook type which will convey articles from a loading station to a plurality of discharging or receiving vstations and automatically discharge said articles, said discharge however, being dependent on whether or not the particular receiving station is already occupied by an article.

A still further object ofthe invention is to provide an improved construction of trip hook for the conveyer.

A still further object of the invention is to provide an improved trip hook construction which permits of the selective delivery of the articles at predetermined stations.

With the above and other objects in view which will appear as the description proceeds, the invention consists in the novel details of construction and combinations of parts more fully hereinafter described and particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

Referring to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification in'which like reference characters designate like parts in all the views: l y

Figure 1 is a' transverse sectional elevational view of a conveyer constructed in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 2 is an elevational view of one of the receiving racks or stations;

Fig. 3 is an enlarged sectional elevational view of one ofthe trip hooks and its associated parts; y

Figs. 4, 5 and 6 are views similar to Fig. 3 but showing three different positions of the pgrts occupied during the resetting of the trip hook after it has discharged the article Carried thereby;

Fig. 7 is a sectional elevational view as seen from the left of Fig. 6;

Fig. 11 is a diagrammatic elevational view of the parts shown in Fig. 10; and,

Figs. 12 and 13 are views similar to Fig. 3, showing two positions of a still further modified form of trip hook especially adapted for selective delivery ofl the articles.

Referring first more particularly to Figs. 10 and 11, which illustrate diagrammatically, a complete conveyer system, it will be noted that the conveyer comprises an'endless chain 15 which passes around and engages the horizont-ally disposed sprocket wheels 16 carried by suitably journalled vertical shafts 17. The said chain may be of any suitable construction comprising vertically pivoted links 18 and in order that the chain may be flexible in a vertical as well as in a horizontal plane, certain of the links such as 19 disposed at suitable intervals are provided with horizontal pivots 20 whereby it is possible for the chain to be deflected downwardly at one point during its travel so that at the loading station it may be'positioned at a height con.- venient to the loading operator while at other points of its travel it will be arranged in a higher plane.

Certain -,of the chain links are rovided with upwardly extending arms 21 w ich carry rollers 22 ada ted to be received within suitable angle or c annel guides or trackways 23 whereby the chain sections between the sprockets 16 may be suitably supported as will be readily understood. At one point lsuch as 25, the trackways 23 are 'deflected downwardly to a loading station 26 from which they are again deflected upwardly as at 27 to the' ioo ends of the said members 32 curved fingers or hooked members 33 are pivotally connected as at 34 and a latch member 35 is pivotally connected to eachof the finger members 33 as at 36. The said latch member is Yprovided with a toe or projection 37 which is adapted to engage and coact with a shoulder 38 formed on the main body member 32, the said toe and shoulder being normally maintained in engagement by means of a coil spring 39 as will be readily understood from the drawings. The parts are so designed and constructed that when the toe or projection 37 engages and rests upon the shoulder 38, the nger member 33 will be maintained in the position shown in Fig. 3 and owing to the arrangement of the pivots 34 and 36, the weight of the article upon the curved finger member 33 will tend to maintain this engagement of the parts 37 and 38. n

The body member 32 of the trip hook, is preferably provided with a pair ofA spaced guide fingers 40 for preventing lateral motion of the latch member 35 and the latter is provided at its upper end with an angularly extending toe 41 which is adapted to engage a suitable trip, to be later described, to release the trip hook and also to engage a suitable restoring cam or member for resetting the trip hook. u, Each receiving station preferably comprises a rack 45 having inclined side members 46, here shown as comprising spaced slats, and one of the said side members has journaled. adjacent its upper port-ion, a transversely extending rock shaft 47 which rigidly carries a plurality of spaced rods 48 extending across the upper portion of the rack, as will be readily understood from Fig. 2. The said rock shaft 47 is also provided with an arm 49 carrying a suitable weight 50'which normally maintains the rods 48 in the full line lpositions illustrated in Fig.y2, as will be readily understood. The rock shaft 47 is further provided with a rigid arm 51 to which is connected the upwardly extending link 52, the upper end of which is connected to one arm of a bell crank lever 53, the other arm of which is connected by means of a link 54 to an arm 55 carried by a jackshaft 56, which is mounted slightly below the trackways 23. The said jackshaft 56 also carries atrip arm 57 which is adapted to be moved into and out of the path of travelof the angular extensions or toes 4l of the latch members 35, above described, whereby the said latches may be tripped, as will be more fully described below.

At one point in the travel of the conveyor chain, preferably between the last receiving station 45 and the loading station 26 there is provided'a cam member 60 for resetting thev trip hooks. As is best shown in Figs. 4, 5, 6

and. 7, this said resetting member comprises an inclined angle member supported below the trackvays 23 by suitable supports 6l and arranged with its lower end 62 toward the approaching trip hooks, as will be readily understood. The member is inclined somewhat as will be clearfrom the said figures so that as the trip hooks approach the same with their latches tripped, as shown in Fig. 4, for instance, the angular extensions 41 of the latches 35 will ride up on the lower end 62 of the reseting member 60. Owing to the inclination of the said member as the trip hooks travel along the same, the said latches 35 will be'raised as indicated successively in Figs. 5 and 6, until the projections 37 are above and free to engage the shoulders 38, whereupon they will be snapped into such engagement by the springs 39. During this raising of the latch members 35, the pivoted linger members 33 will also be raised through the various positions illustrated in Figs. 4, 5 and 6, to their normal load carrying positions.

In the particular embodiment here selected for illustrative purposes, the conveye'i` has been shown as being used for transferring automobile tire casings from one place to another and its operation is as follows:

As the conveyer chain 15 approaches the loading station 26, the trip hooks 33 are in load receiving positions and the tire casings 65 are manually or automatically placed one upon each hook and are then conveyed to the receiving stations, where they are automatically deposited through the tripping of the latch members 35 by the trip arms 57. It

Y being assumed that none of the receiving stations have heretofore received a tire, each of the trip arms 57 will be positioned in the path of ltravel'of the toes 41 of the latches 35 and as the said trip hooks approach the said receiving stations, the said toes will contact with the trip arms 57 to release the latches 35 in the manner above described, thereby releasing the pivoted curved .fingers and dropping the tire into the receiving racks 46.

As the tire enters the said rack it engages and forces downwardly the transversely extending rods 48 which through their rigid connection with the rock shaft 47 produces a downward movement of the arm 51 and link 52 which movement is transmitted through the bell crank lever 53 and link 54 to the arm 55 andjackshaft 56 which in turn raises the trip arm 57 from its full line position shown in Fig. 1, in the path of the toe 41- to its dotted line position shown in the said ligure, out of the path of the toes 41. It thusresults that so long as a particular receiving station is occupied by a tire casing, that the trip arm 57 associated therewith will be raised out of the path of travel of the latch toes 41 so that no additional tires will be deposited at that paricular station until the tire occupying it has been removed. Of course, if all of the receiving stations 45 are occupied by tires, no additional tires will be dropped by the conveyer but they will be continuously moved -Power may be transmitted to the conveyer" chain 15 from any suitable source not shown, through the medium of the shaft 66 and sprocket 67, illustrated in Fig. 10, or through any one of the corner shafts 17 and sprocvk-v ets 16.

In the preferred form of the invention heretofore described, the trip hooks have been shown and described as being rigidly supported from the' chain 15. However, in some instances it may be ldesirable to pivotally support them from the said chain as indicated at 70 in Fig. 8. In this form of the invention the main body member 32 of the trip hook is provided with the laterally eX- tending arms 71 having pins or projections 72 adapted to engage suitable guide members diagrammatically indicated at 73 which guide members will be positioned immediately above each trip arm 57 and above the resetting cam in order to prevent the swinging of the trip hooks during the tripping and resetting operations.

Instead of having a mechanical connection between the receiving stations 45 of the trip arms 57, the latter may be controlled electrically, as indicated diagrammatically in Fig. 9. In this slightly modified form, the rock shaft 47 of the receiving station is provided with a cam 75 which is adapted to engage a roller 76 carried by an arm 77 `which constitutes or controls one member of a suitable electric circuit maker and breaker 78. This said-device 78 controls the flow of current from a source such as a battery 79 through wires 80 and 81 to a solenoid or electromagnet 82 which is provided with an armature 83, directly connected to the arm 55, carried bv the jackshaft 56 of the trip mechanism. en a tire such as is deposited in the receiving rack 46 and the shaft 47 rocked by me'ans of the arms 48 above described, the cam 75 will be moved from the full line position shown in Fio. 9, to its dot-i ted line position, thereby causing the arm 77 to breakthe circuit through the solenoid, whereupon the spring 85 will act to raise the trip arm 57 out of the path of the trip toe 41.

If it is desired to provi-de for selective delivery of articles, such as tire casings for example, of different sizes and weights, at different predetermined points, i. e., to deliver all casings of a certain size and weight at a certain station and other casings of another size and weight at another station, and so on, the form of trip hook lshown in Figs. 12 and 13 may be advantageously employed. In this form, the downwardly depending arms 30 are provided with the cage members 90, which are apertured, as at 91 to slidably receive the upwardly projecting stems 92 with which the body members 32 of the `trip hooks are provided. The said stems 92 carry rigid arms 93 adjacent their upper ends, which arms project outwardly through slot-s 94 provided in the cage members 90, to prevent turning of the parts about the axes of the stems, although permitting of vertical movement, as will be readily understood from the drawings. A spring 95 surrounds each stem 92, bef tween the arm 93 and the bottom of the cage 90, which springs are compressed to varying degrees according to the weight of casings placed upon the particular lhook member 33. In other words, as shown in Fig. 12, a small and comparatively light casing 65 will compress the spring 95 only slightly, whereas a larger and heavier casing will compress they said spring to a greater degree, as illustrated in Fig. 13.

By the construction just described it is obvious that casi gs of varying weights will depress the tri hook members 32.varying distances, so the toes 41 thereof will travel. in horizontal planes located at various distances below the tracks 23. If therefore, the various trip arms 57 of the different stations be located indifferent planes, it is possible to have all casings of a certain weight tripped at one or more predetermined stations. and all casings of another weight tripped at one or more other stations,.and so on. Since the weight of the casings is usually dependent upon the size, it is thus possible to segregate the casings at predetermined stations accord` ing to size, although they may be loaded upon the conveyer indiscriminately.

Itis obvious that those skilled in the art may vary the detailsof construction as well as the precisearrangements of parts without departing from the spirit of the invention and therefore, it is not wished to be limited to theabove disclosure except as may be `re quired by the claims.

What is claimed is: f

l1. In a conveyer system, a receiving sta.- tion; a 'conveyer adapted to transfer articles to said station; means for releasing said articles from said conveyer uponarrival at said station; and means for preventing the release of articles at said stationv if it is alreadyoccupied by an article. 1 2. In a conveyer system, a loading station; a plurality of receiving stations; a conveyer extending *from said loading station to said receiving stations, provided with releasable article-carrying means; means at each of said receiving stations for releasing said articlecarrying means, whereby articles may be deposited from said conveyer at said receiving stations; and means for rendering said last named means inoperative when a station is already occupied by an article.

3. In a conveyer system, a loading station; a receiving station; ay conveyer extending from said loading station to said receiving station, provided With article-carrying means having a releasing member; means at said receiving station normally positioned in the path of said releasing member for tripping said member and releasing an article at said station; and means controlled by the presence of an article at said receiving station, for moving said last named means out of the path of said releasing member.

4. In a conveyer system, a loading station; a receiving station; a conveyer extending from said loading station to said receiving station, provided With automatically releasablc article-carrying means having a latch member; a trip member at said receiving station, normally positioned in thepath of a portion of said latch member; a rock shaft at said receiving station; connections between said shaft and said trip member; and means adapted to be engaged by an article as it is deposited at said receiving station, for moving said shaft.'

5. In a conveyer system, a loading station; a receiving station; a conveyer extending from said loading station to said receiving station, provided With automatically releasable article-carrying means having a latch member; a pivoted trip member at said receiving station, normally positioned in the path of a portion of said latch member; a rock shaft at said receiving station; connections betweeirsaid shaft and said pvoted trip member; means carried by said shaft adapted to be engaged by an article as it is deposited at said receiving station, for moving said shaft and thereby moving said trip member out of the path of said latch member; and

means for restoring the rock shaft and trip member to normal position when the article is removed from said receiving station.

6. An article-carrying means for conveyers, comprising a body member adapted to be secured to a conveyer chain; an article-receiving member pivotally connected to said body member; and a latch member pivotally connected to said yreceiving member and releasably engaging said body member, for normally maintaining said receiving member in carrying position.

7. An article-carrying means for conveyers, comprising a body member adapted to be secured to a conveyer belt; an article receiving member pivotally carried by said body member, adapted under the influence of gravity to swing from a carrying to a discharging position; a detent on said body member; a latch member pivotally carried by said receiving member, provided With a toe adapted to engage said detent to hold said receiving member in carrying position; and resilient means for holding said latch in en- 1 gagement with said detent.

8. An article-carrying means for conveyers, comprising a body member adapted to be secured to a conveyer chain; an article-receiving member pivotally carried by Said body member; and a latch member pivotally carried by said receiving member, releasably engaging said body member, for normally maintaining said receiving member in carrying position, said latch member having a tripping projection adapted to engage a trip arm to release said receiving member, said projection being also adapted to engage a resetting member to restore the parts to normal article carrying position.

9. In a conveyer, a conveyer belt; articlecarrying means carried by said conveyer belt, comprising a body member, a gravity actuated article-receiving member pivotally carried by said body member, and a latch pivotally carried by said receiving member and rcleasably engaging said body member, for normally maintaining said receiving member in carrying position; means for trip ing said latch to release said receiving mem er; and means` for engaging a portion of said latch and lifting the same, to restore the parts to normal carrying position.

l0. In a conveyer, a conveyer belt; articlecarrying means carried by said belt, comprising a body member, a gravity actuated articlereceiving member pivotally carried by said body member, and a latch having a projection pivotally carried by said receiving member and releasably engaging said body member, for normally maintaining said receiving member in carrying position; means for tripping said latch to release said receiving member; and a stationary cam means in the path of and engageable by the projection on said latch, for lifting the latter to restore the parts to normal carrying position.

LLOYD H. DRAEGER. 

